Constitutional Fate depended upon two limiting conclusions. First, it argued that the search for a grand theory was misconceived on logical grounds. … This meant that no grand theory privileging any-or all-of these modalities could legitimate and justify their operation in any case. A theory that was comprehensive 6 and complete could not provide certainty, because the modalities could conflict. A theory that was comprehensive and provided certainty by privileging some modalities, as for example, by a hierarchical arrangement, could not be complete because it would require the inclusion of new principles to legitimate the hierarchy, and then new rules to legitimate the operation of these principles, and so on. A theory that was certain and complete (such as strict construction) could not be comprehensive because it excluded some modalities.

DEFINE: The three aspirational attributes — comprehensiveness, certainty, and completeness — form mutually exclusive pairs of goals for grand legal theory.

Philip Chase Bobbitt, Philip Chase Bobbitt - Refl…, loc. 177